A Thanksgiving Story

"I hurt myself lifting the damned turkey!"

Oh, sure. You can tell yourself you threw your back out when you bent over the scalding oven door to heft 20 pounds of turkey and stuffing at the level of your shins. You can tell yourself that, but you are wrong, my dear. (You can't blame it on the turkey.)

It was the stress that did it.

Ask for Help

And I don't just mean getting the big guy to haul that bird out of the oven for you (what a concept!). I mean really ask for help.

In this holiday of Thanks and Giving, make sure you keep the giving in balance. Your family wants to

eat a little turkey, sure, but they do not want you to martyr yourself getting it to the table.

Here's how to avoid the inevitable;

Cross things off your to-do list (without doing them).Delegate (think of it as "sharing").Ask for help (every step of the way).Be willing to actually receive it. Yo.

(Here's the big one...) Accept that your family will show up as themselves. Hah!

They always do. You have been in relationship together since some of you were children, and being together at the Thanksgiving table brings out the child in all of us.

It's okay. It's supposed to be that way. Find the humor in it, because there is no point in stressing about it. It'll only hurt your back.

And, if you hit the hostessing wall on Thursday, just quit. Seriously. If you need a break, take it. Astonishing how people get off the sofa and help, when you stop leading the whole effort.

Don't Become a Massage Emergency

I like to say, "There are no massage emergencies." Except on Black Friday. Don't be one of them. There is still time to reign Thanksgiving in and make Thursday different this year.

Hey, you could even be iconoclastic and skip the whole turkey thing! Serve a Thai green curry like the one pictured here. It's much lighter! It doesn't require gravy-making! It definitely won't throw your back out.

“...people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”Maya Angelou